Louis Juchereau de St. Denis

Canadian Frenchman Louis Juchereau de St. Denis played an important role in the beginnings of Texas. In 1711, Spanish Father Francisco Hidalgo in East Texas wrote a letter to the French Governor Cadillac in Louisiana seeking assistance from the French in the religious conversion of the Caddo Confederacy. In response, Governor Cadillac sent trader St. Denis who found that Father Hidalgo had returned to Mexico. Following him, St. Denis arrived at the Presidio San Juan Bautista del Río Grande in July 1714 and was arrested and sent to Mexico City. There he gained the trust of the authorities with his vast knowledge of the rivers and terrain of Spanish Texas and he helped to produce the noted Olivan map of 1717.

St. Denis returned to East Texas in 1716 as a guide and ambassador for the Ramón-Espinoza-Margil expedition that founded a total of six missions and a presidio. St. Denis became the commandant at Natchitoches and provided goods and supplies to the Spanish missionaries and soldiers during dire times and actively traded with the Caddo tribes. Spanish authorities continued to forbid his trading activities of contraband goods but they had little control. Archeologists have located a St. Denis trading campsite in this vicinity. Through his travels, St. Denis contributed to the expanded geographical knowledge of New Spain, and he was the first European to travel the entire length of El Camino Real from Louisiana to Mexico City. Because of his expertise with the native Indians, the Spanish grew to loathe St. Denis and upon his death, the Governor in Mexico City is said to have declared, “St. Denis is dead, thank God!” (2013).